1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a belt clamp to be used to hold a wire harness in a bundled position.
2. Statement of the Prior Art
This kind of belt clamp is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Utility Model Public Disclosure No. 59-136009 (1984). The disclosed belt clamp includes a belt portion and a buckle portion. The buckle portion is provided with a tongue piece having a through hole adapted to permit the belt portion to pass therethrough and pawls adapted to engage with a series of cogs on the belt portion.
For convenience of explanation, a construction of a conventional belt clamp is described below by referring to FIG. 5. FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view of the prior belt clamp which bundles a wire harness. The belt clamp shown in FIG. 5 is the same type of belt clamp disclosed in the above Disclosure. It will be apparent from the drawing that the tongue piece 70 of the buckle portion 60 projects flexibly in a through hole 62. Accordingly, the height of the through hole 62 is set as the total amount of the height of the tongue piece 70 prior to being bent and tile thickness of the belt portion.
In the belt clamp described above, the height H of the buckle portion 60 inevitably becomes great in order to assure sufficient size of the through hole 62. Consequently, if the buckle portion 60 is attached to a mounting panel P by a lock leg 80 formed integrally on the buckle portion, a wire harness W which is bundled by the belt portion 50 and the buckle portion 60 is spaced far away from the top face of the mounting panel P.
This necessitates a large space for attaching the wire harness W by the belt clamp to the mounting panel P and causes a backlash of the wire harness W in the belt clamp. The backlash causes a noise or an abnormal sound.